Blaming cops for Cincinnati beating death is not so easy this time

Once again, my former hometown, Cincinnati, is a spectacle for the world because of police violence with racial overtones.

Having grown up in poor black neighborhoods throughout the Queen City, I usually have an easy time fixing blame when a black person dies at the hands of cops. This time it isn't so easy. Nathaniel Jones, 41, a 350-pound black man, lunged at white Cincinnati cops who were trying to subdue him. The video of the police beating him with their nightsticks in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant reminded me of the fury and grief I felt when I learned that Cincinnati police had fatally shot 15 people in five years during the mid-1990s, and every single one of those people was a black man.

It reminded me that the 2000 U.S. Census found that Cincinnati, which has a 43 percent black population, is the eighth most segregated city in the nation. It reminded me that in 2001, Cincinnati police fatally shot 19-year-old Timothy Thomas, an unarmed black man wanted for traffic violations. Black Cincinnatians rioted in the streets, as well as peacefully demonstrated at the police department to express their fury and frustration.

But the more I saw the Jones tape, the less certain I became. Take a swing at a cop, and you activate the fighting mechanism inside most police officers. Real cops get punched and attacked by enraged perpetrators and victims at domestic violence calls. Real cops get confronted by the dilemma of suicide-by-police. Real cops have to chase dangerous criminals who can inflict incalculable harm if they are not caught or somehow stopped. Rather than assign blame right away, I'm more interested in how Cincinnati can keep others from being beaten by cops.

Mayor Charlie Luken asked the city to spend $1 million of the 2004 budget on stun guns that fire small projectiles that can shock a person from 25 feet away. The request is pending. If the purchase of the stun guns cannot be expedited, then something else has to be done. The lack of the stun guns is an indicator that Cincinnati police are trying to do their job without the latest and safest equipment.

The sadness for Cincinnati is that the city has been working hard on the problem of police racism and brutality. Since the murder of Timothy Thomas, the Black United Front, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, the City of Cincinnati and the Fraternal Order of Police have entered a unique collaborative agreement to change relations between the community and police.

The work that began in 2001 to help improve police and community relations must continue. These efforts include neighborhood meetings sponsored by Cincinnati Human Relations Commission, studies by the Citizens Review Committee of complaints about the police, race relations marches, suburban/urban school exchanges, library interracial book clubs focused on race and black and white church partnerships.

The U.S. Justice Department's recent probe of police actions in Jones' death must proceed. In addition, there should be an investigation by an independent nongovernmental human-rights organization of the use of force in the Jones case and any others that follow a similar pattern. Citizens should not have to fear their community's protectors. My old hometown deserves better.

Starita Smith is an award-winning writer and editor based in Denton, Texas, where she is a doctorate student in sociology at Texas Woman's University. She is a former reporter and editor at the Austin American-Statesman, the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and the Gary (Ind.) Post-Tribune.